604 



THE WOOD DUCK. 



The European Teal {N. cracca) is an occasional straggler in America. It is very abun- 

 dant in the season in the rice plantations of the South. Its length is fifteen inches, and 

 extent of wings twenty-four inches. 



The Wood Duck {Aix sponsd) is, perhaps, the most beautiful bird in North America. It 

 inhabits all of the northern continent, especially the United States, breeding in all parts ; 

 wintering in the South. Audubon says of it : — 



'"The Wood Duck, or Summer Duck, as it is called in some quarters, breeds in the 

 Middle States in April, in Massachusetts a month later, and in Nova Scotia not much before 

 June. It appears to prefer for breeding the hollow of a tree. I have frequently been surprised 

 to see it go in and out of a hole, when their bodies wliile on the wing seem to be more than 

 twice as large as the aperture where it had deposited its eggs. Once only I found a nest, 



WOOD OVCK— Aid- sponsa. 



in the fissure of a rock. On coming to a nest with eggs wlien the bird was absent in search 

 of food, I h-ave always found the eggs covered over with feathers and down, although quite 

 out of sight, in the depth of a woodi)ecker's or squirrel's hole. On the contrary, when the 

 nest was placed on a broken branch of a tree, it could easily be observed from the ground, 

 on account of the feathers and sticks and withered grass about it. If the nest is jilaced immedi- 

 ately over the water, the young, the moment they are hatched, scramble to the mouth of 

 the hole, launch into the air, vnt\\ their little wings and feet spread out, and drop into 

 their favorite element ; but whenever their birth-place is some distance from it the mother 

 carries them to it, one by one, in her bill. On several occasions I observed, however, when 

 the hole was thirty, forty or more yards from a bayou or other piece of water, the mother 

 suffered the young to drop on the gi'asses and dried leaves beneath the tree, and afterwards 

 led them directly to the nearest edge of the next pool. At this early age the young answer to 

 the i^a rent's call with a mellow pee, pee, pee-e, often and rapidly repeated. The caU of the 

 mother at such times is low, soft, and prolonged." 



